


Secrets and Saints

by chewsdaychillin



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (or first night stands), Fluff, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Martin POV, Missing Scene, Morning After, One Night Stands, afterglow confessions, canon in my eyes, i cant get over that tim knew about martins fake cv in s1 so, teenie bit insecure but they are jus nice to each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23611165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewsdaychillin/pseuds/chewsdaychillin
Summary: ‘Can I tell you something?’ Martin whispers before he can take it back, and Tim kisses him before he says:‘Of course.’‘A secret.’Tim’s eyes light up. ‘Oh? Go on, I love a secret.’
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Tim Stoker
Comments: 36
Kudos: 307





	Secrets and Saints

**Author's Note:**

> tim knew........ in s1........ i have feelings......

‘I’m not going to kick you out,’ Tim says it again, following Martin’s eyes to the light switch.

Martin’s already checked three times he can stay. And every time Tim’s told him not to be thick and pulled him back into his chest. His hand has stayed in Martin’s hair since it first ended up there, even when he’d lent over, quite acrobatically really, to grab tissues and T-shirts.

‘Come on,’ he’s saying again now, fingers walking up a piece of fringe, ‘as if I’d make you get the night tube. I’m not that kind of guy.’

Martin tries again to explain that slow, small creep of guilt he gets - like molasses, sweet and black - into his chest when it starts to rise and fall like normal again. It seeps into the bit of cold that hits after, the goosebumps over his ribs. The window is cracked open and he’s just starting to want it closed.

‘I don’t think you’re-’

Tim scoffs over the end of it. ’And I wouldn’t kick _you_ out especially,’ he insists, ‘I do actually like you. Believe it or not.’

‘Oh,’ Martin says. He’s glad he can’t see Tim’s face - the exasperation and the fondness that are somehow both comforting and the opposite.

‘You’re literally wearing my pyjamas,’ Tim points out, running a warm hand up under his old shirt to prove it.

It skates over Martin’s goosebumps, but even as his breath threatens to make him look stupid he relaxes into it. Another completely unexpected nicety that’s actually quote nice. 

He just says 'okay,’ on a steadying exhale. Finite this time.

Okay. He’ll stay. 

Tim shifts out from underneath him, shuffles over to just half an arms length onto his half of the bed, head on his own his pillow so he can look right into Martin’s face. He’s smiling - Martin would say smirking if it didn’t look so genuine.

‘You _do_ remember us having sex, right?’

Martin rolls his eyes away into the sheets. Like he’s going to forget anytime soon. He’ll probably remember it for an embarrassingly long time, longer than Tim will, he shouldn’t wonder. That is the general way of things. He’s not going to let _that_ on on purpose.

‘Yeah, I do, I just thought- whatever,’ he groans, catching Tim’s teasing expression, and pushes the corner of the pillow between them in his face. ‘Stop!’

Tim’s affronted gasp is muffled in the down. 'You trying to kill me?!’

‘Trying to shut you up.’

Tim pushes the pillow down.

‘Is this about the referencing?’ He puts his hands up in mock surrender against another attack. ‘Look, I said sorry! It wasn’t that bad!’

‘Oh ha ha,’ Martin sighs, pulls his pillow back over his own face, hiding the blotchy redness that always tries to give his lies away. He’s good at lying, or he thinks so, but he’s apparently terrible at referencing. ‘It was awful.’ 

Tim chuckles, pulls back the pillow and kisses him. Just once but it hums. It’s the first once since the afterglow has faded. The first one with pyjamas on.

‘Yeah,’ Tim admits with a grin, ‘it wasn’t great. But look, Jon’s just... picky.’

They both make a similar face.

‘He’s alright really,’ Tim promises, like he’s trying to convince himself. ‘He’s just an arsehole when he’s stressed.’

Martin hums. Then suddenly worries. 'You think I’m stressing him out?’

Tim huffs a laugh into the air between them. 'Everything stresses him out, I wouldn’t worry about it.’

It’s very much easier said than done. Especially coming from Tim, who never seems to worry about anything - who’s work is always excellent, if unorthodox. Who already seems on some level of closeness, or at least familiarity with Jon that means he can get away with not being buttoned up around the office. Tim doesn’t even get up and knock when he needs something - just wheels over to Jon’s door and calls through the glass.

But he could get away with anything. That charming boyish smile, his hair all mussed and sweaty on his forehead. Eyebrows stuck up the wrong way.

And he’s really very nice. Their faces are very close.

‘Can I tell you something?’ Martin whispers before he can take it back, and Tim kisses him before he says:

‘Of course.’

‘A secret.’

Tim’s eyes light up. ‘Oh? Go on, I love a secret.’

‘No really,’ Martin tells him, presses a pleading palm to his chest. 'You really can’t tell anyone.’

’Tis in my memory locked,’ Tim quotes with great enjoyment, gently tapping him on the nose, ‘and you yourself shall keep the key of it.’

Martin bats his hand away but doesn’t let go of it completely, trying not to smile. The Shakespeare doesn’t go unappreciated, just another nice thing, something they share and that he trusts - the memory of that first verse-based conversation, the moment he’d realised it was flirting and stammered over his iambs. But -

‘I’m _serious_ ,’ he says seriously, entreatingly, and Tim frowns.

’ _I’m_ serious.’ He shuffles up closer, cocks his head into the pillow. ‘What is it? You’re worrying me.’

‘It’s okay,’ Martin reassures him quickly, ‘don’t worry, it’s just...’ He breathes out a long breath, pushes it out against the weight on his chest. ‘Okay,’ he starts, ‘okay. There is actually a reason why I cant do this referencing stuff. And why I can’t use JSTOR-'

(Sasha had had to show him how to use the search function and he’d made her tea and apologised for wasting her time.)

‘Is the reason that you’re always a nervous wreck at the office?’ Tim asks, brows concerned but mouth threatening to quirk.

‘No!’ Martin protests. Then falters at Tim’s quirked brow. ‘Am I?’

Tim tilts his head to the other side. 'Aren’t you?’

Martin decides to ignore him.

(He very much is at least half of the time. It’s barely been enough time to call Tim and Sasha friends, let alone start an office romance, and he’d got his head round the number system quick enough but the filing is a whole other matter.)

‘I mean,’ he says, nosing deeper into the shadow Tim’s casting on his pillow. 'That’s not it, anyway.’

Tim seems to realise he’s _really_ not joking then. He shifts back, gives Martin some breathing room and traces four fingertips gently up his arm. His expression is open, listening, more serious than Martin’s seen it. It makes him want to talk.

‘I don’t actually know how to do all that stuff,’ he admits.

There’s a tiny pause and it sounds from Tim’s inhale like he’s thinking of jumping in, and it’ll be something nice like ‘of course you do’ and Martin doesn’t want to make a liar out of him too so he breaths in himself and goes on.

‘I never went to uni. I don’t have a masters in parapsychology, or a BA, I...’ He can’t help but laugh, rueful and bitter and only, he hopes, a little insecure. ’I’ve got half an A-Level in English Lit and... that’s all.’

He doesn’t look at Tim straight away, too weak to watch him take it in and thinking he’s strong enough to whether the silence.

It turns out he isn’t strong enough. He looks up and Tim is staring at him like he’s grown an extra head.

‘Really?’

Martin nods against the pillow.

Tim breathes out a low whistle. ‘Wow.’

‘I know,’ Martin groans, rolling onto his back and throwing an arm over his face, ’it’s bad.’

‘It’s certainly crazy,’ Tim agrees. 

‘I know, I know,’ Martin intones into the inside of his elbow, ‘but I really needed a job and -’

‘No,’ Tim says, pulling his arm off with what sounds like a gentle chuckle. ‘Martin it’s... it’s pretty bloody impressive.’

‘Really?’

In fairness, Martin had sort of admitted, just to himself, that it was. When he’d got the call saying he could start on Monday he’d barely believed it, and celebrated with a beer and a record and privately, secretly, been impressed with himself for one permissible evening. But he’d known that wasn’t something he could expect other people to share.

And yet Tim is looking at him with wide, bright, very impressed eyes, grinning like he’s entertained by the whole thing, like it’s an amazing spectacle. Like _he_ is.

‘Yeah,’ Tim says, voice breathy, ‘I mean. So you just, made up a whole MA?’

‘Yeah.’

Tim shakes his head. ‘You made up everything?’

‘My whole CV Pretty much. It’s just my name and address that’s real on there.’

(He doesn’t mention the age thing. It seems far more personal now, something about truthful, informed consent. That part he’ll still feel guilty about. Tim thinks they’re the same age.)

‘And you managed to con _Elias_ into hiring you?’

‘Yeah,’ Martin shrugs, smiling at the fun tone Tim manages to strike even in his incredulity. ‘It wasn't that hard. I mean, no one checked.’

‘Really? That’s...’ Tim trails off into another chuckle ‘Wow.’

‘So,’ Martin says slowly, ‘you’re not, I don’t know. Cross?’

Tim frowns. ‘No, course not. I think it’s hilarious. And genuinely impressive.’

‘Well. Thank you. Actually, thanks, that’s... I’ve not been able to talk about it to anyone so thanks. It’s not, uh. Been easy.’

Tim hums, goes back to stroking his arm. 'I can imagine. I get why you’re so jumpy now.’

‘Oh God,’ Martin groans, 'am I that bad?’

‘Yeah, I just assumed it was new job stress.’ Tim smirks then, his proper flirtatious one he’s been throwing round the office, ‘thought you could use some help relaxing.’

Martin pulls a face at him. It’s the only response to his bad lines that isn’t melting. ‘Ugh.’

Tim laughs at it, but he fades back into this new seriousness, fiddling with the hem of the sleeve, his sleeve, really, where it sits on martin’s shoulder.

‘You’re pulling it off you know?’ He says, ‘I wouldn’t have guessed.’

Martin’s eyebrows shoot up. He doesn’t believe that for much longer than a second.

‘Really?’ He asks, and for a moment the incredulity covers his worry with amusement. It doesn’t last. He starts again but hits a bit of tar, sticky insecurity that slows him right down. ‘I feel like you all... know a lot. I mean, I know I’m not stupid-’

‘No, you’re not,’ Tim says quietly, but Martin’s still talking.

‘-And I know I can _staple_ without an Oxbridge degree, don’t see why you need one at all, really, but... You know. You and Jon and Sasha just seem to know a lot about- I don’t know. Stuff. Trivia. Books. God, I don’t know. Sorry, I’m rambling.’

Tim tuts at him gently and Martin knows what he’s going to say. 'Don’t say sorry-‘

‘Sorry,’ Martin says, then scoffs at himself. ’I just haven’t... I’ve not got this off my chest to anyone. It’s been such a big stress, getting this job. I _really_ couldn’t afford the flat. And I couldn’t talk to my mum about it, I only see her once a fortnight ‘cause she lives in Devon and-'

He stops, closes his eyes and exhales. Stop talking. Oh God. He’s just very much exposed he doesn’t have _any_ friends outside of work and that his only conversation is with his mother. He cringes for the sudden pity and the awkward rush of realisation Tim must be feeling knowing he’s really slept with someone _that_ lame.

He must be a massive downer.

‘I’ll stop talking now,’ he says quietly.

Tim sighs. ‘No, it’s fine.’

His hand stills on Martin’s arm and his brows crease. Martin watches him think, sorry for every furrow in his forehead. He’s trying to decide what to say, no doubt. Trying to pick which sad little part of that rant he’s going to ask about, or whether to leave it alone.

Eventually he says slowly - ‘you see your mum every other week?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And she lives in _Devon?’_

‘Yeah. She lives in a home in Taunton.’

‘But that’s- thats what, four hours on the train?’

‘Yeah, three and a half, four. And four back.’

‘Martin,’ Tim half laughs, shaking his head, ‘are you actually telling me you’re a devious liar and a bloody _saint_ in the same conversation?’

‘I’m not a saint,’ Martin tells him, rolling his eyes to cover the peach-pink glow the long denied compliment plants in his chest.

No one’s ever called him a saint. Even the nurses don’t know he doesn’t have a car. It feels like more than plain gratitude and he doesn’t know what to do with the fact it might make him fall for Tim just a tiny bit.

He pushes that off, schools his voice into something teasing.

’Need I remind you I have _two_ fake degrees.’

‘Yeah,’ Tim laughs, ‘to pay for bloody train tickets to Devon all the time, It’s saintly. Well it’s sweet, anyway,’ he goes on as Martin huffs at him. ‘I think you should ask Elias for a raise.’

‘Maybe I will.’

‘Get me one too?’

‘Sure,’ Martin promises; smiles for a second, then goes in to get himself a kiss.

Tim hums as if he appreciates the boldness, catches Martin’s chin with his thumb when he tries to retreat, holds him in for another. It’s longer, slower. It buzzes with something that isn’t promise but maybe feeling?

Everyone and everything seemed to tell him Tim just does casual. Tim had hold him so, in the cab on the way over. _‘Just so we’re on the same page,_ ’ he’d said, hand on Martin’s knee, the one furthest from him.

The feeling he puts into kissing, now, into lending pyjamas and listening to secrets and rants, is very unexpected. It’s probably friendship. It’s warm and fuzzy and playful like his friendship is. But mixing it with attraction under the weight of his duvet muddies the waters somewhat.

The office might have just gotten a little more complicated.

‘Lights out?’ Tim asks as they slip apart with sleep.

In the dark Martin can play with his fingers sleepily without having to watch his own cringing hand. He sighs, heart light, only weighed down by blanket and Tim’s arm.

In the morning, dressed in the same clothes as yesterday, reminded all too cruelly in the kitchen of their very much _office-based_ beginnings, Martin feels the need to check again.

He puts the kettle on to ease the neediness of it.

’So,’ he asks, watching Tim go through his tin cupboard for jam ,’you won’t tell anyone?’

His voice is still very small. He hopes Tim doesn’t think it’s too pathetic. With clothes back on and a clock ticking down on them and a train to catch it feels a bit different. But Tim shuffles over to his bit of counter and his face is sincere.

‘No,’ he promises, ‘no I won’t.’

‘I _really_ can’t get fired,’ Martin presses, but he can see Tim lifting a reassuring hand and trusts it even before it lands on his arm. He smiles then. ‘And I do kind of like it there.’

‘Kind of?’ Tim laughs, ‘well, cheers for that. Didn’t I say you were sweet just last night?’

‘I like you lot.’

‘Us lot?’ Tim presses, somehow coy and cocky through a mouthful of toast.

Martin sighs. ‘You,’ he admits.

‘I like you too,’ Tim grins, giving him an abrupt but easy kiss that tastes of jam and running late before shoving a slice of toast into his mouth and laughing. 'Even if you are a filthy liar.’

**Author's Note:**

> ty for reading :)))) the shakespeare is Ophelia to Laertes in Hamlet i wanna say act 1 scene 3? maybe? 
> 
> anyway martim gang rise xoxo


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